The Life and Loves of Winona Kirk
by PapayazDemon
Summary: Because George Kirk wasn't the only love of her life, and she'd never been very good at balancing any of them.


**The Life and Loves of Winona Kirk**

Summary: Because George Kirk wasn't the only love of her life, and she'd never been very good at balancing any of them.

A/N: This idea was brewing in my head for a good week and just wouldn't leave me alone. It was inspired by the many amazing Winona Kirk fics out there, as well as the ones that I personally cannot stand; no mother can be so one-dimensionally horrible to her own son. Un-beta'd, so sorry for all the mistakes that I inevitably missed. The last quote is by Anthony Brandt for those who are curious. Rated M for Winona's potty mouth.

_Disclaimer: Me no own Star Trek. It makes me very sad._

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>"<em>Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it." - Hardy D. Jackson<em>

Winona Eleanor Sampson was born and raised in Jackson County, Iowa, where everyone could trace their ancestry to maybe five or six families who had settled there centuries back. The people who lived in Jackson County were born in Jackson County and had only one big trip in their entire lives, to Chicago, where all they did was whine about the snobby, rude, nose-in the air city folk. They returned to Jackson Country immediately afterwards, and, many decades later, they died in Jackson County.

Winona's father was a farmer, and his father was a farmer, and so on and so on and so on. Her mother's family was the same except if you went far enough back, you'd find one of her great-great-however-many-great grandfathers married a Sioux woman, whose ancestors had lived on the land even longer than the farmers.

Winona grew up in floral dresses and denim coveralls, in pig tails and straw hats. She learned to milk cows by five and to cook by seven. She had long golden blond hair, blue eyes, and was prom queen her senior year. In absolutely no way though was Winona a country gal. She was headstrong, opinionated and never afraid to punch someone in the face if they deserved it. She was prone to profanity, to drinking too much, and to looking forward but never looking back. She loved her family, but despite their best efforts, her parents could never accept her and everything that who she was, and damn if sometimes that didn't hurt.

It wasn't that she didn't like the country; quite the opposite, in fact. She loved the calm blue skies, the golden fields that stretched on to eternity and waking up to the sound of birds in her morning. More anything though, she loved gazing at the stars on a clear, cloudless night – counting them, saying their names and constellations, and imaging what life was like on each and every one. But to her, all that was just scenery, and she couldn't build her life around its backdrop. So when she finally, _truly_ fell in love at the tender age of fourteen, she knew there was no turning back.

All it took was some AC/DC and the rev of a classic 1983 Honda CB750 engine.

She was working at a bar in Maquoketa for the summer, and she and the owner had an understanding. She'd have a few beers on shift and maybe a few more after, but she wouldn't touch the strong stuff for another two years, in or outside of the bar. She'd made good on their deal, and she genuinely liked the work.

She'd seen bikes in and around work for some years – mostly travellers, looking for something to quench their thirst as they passed through the stifling Iowan summers - but they'd never caught her attention before. That night (she didn't remember the date) Winona had just gotten off shift and was about to head home in her old, rusty pick-up, when Corby Marbray pulled up to the front door. She'd stared, she knew that, but she really couldn't help it. Corby had a kind of Beau Bausko vibe from those old 22nd century vids and his bike, _god_. It was the most beautiful thing Winona had ever seen and she just wanted to take it apart and figure out how it worked.

A wink, a "Like what you see beautiful" (and Winona had told him straight up like hell was he getting laid but she'd be damned if he wasn't taking her for a ride) and a couple beers later they were tearing down highway 61. That feeling, with the wind in her hair, the engine purring under her, and nothing but empty road for miles ahead, was Winona's first taste at freedom. And fuck if it wasn't sweet.

She drove to Des Moines after finishing high school at sixteen and got a job as a mechanic. She took shop and programming classes at a local college at night, and finished the year at the top of her classes. She lost her virginity to a ballet dancer (yes, a man thank you very much) who was even better at running away from his problems than she was.

She moved back home the next year to find her sister had been killed in a car accident six months prior, her dad had turned to alcohol to cope and Frank, well, he'd already been an alcoholic. He was running the farm through their father's depression though, so Winona didn't really see much of him and she tried to keep it that way. She'd wanted to enrol in an engineering program at ISU but her father forbid it and she had needed parental consent. Well, to be honest, she probably could've gotten around the parental consent forms, but maybe she was just a little bit scared about what would happen to her family (not herself though dammit, she _dared_ him to try anything) if she disobeyed him and ran away again.

Winona compromised (though her dad didn't know) and took online courses. She distanced herself from the farm life and immersed herself in her studies. Her father's drinking got worse and her mom cried almost every day, and eventually Winona couldn't take it anymore. On her 18th birthday she cut her hair to chin length, dyed it brown and got a tattoo. It was a black image of a Constitution-class starship, a couple inches squared, on her left shoulder blade. Her family threw her a birthday party that night (which was supposed to be a surprise, but really, who were they kidding) and when she walked in the door, she swore she'd heard her father's jaw hit the floor. She told them right there in the dining room; she was joining Starfleet and heading to the Academy in San Fran as an engineering major. Her mother started crying, her father started yelling and Frank just stormed out.

Winona went upstairs to grab her bags, ignoring her father's increasingly loud rant. She waited up there for nearly an hour before going back downstairs. Her father had gone, but her mother was still sitting at the table, a glass and a bottle of wine in front of her. She asked Winona, "Why?" in a pitiful voice (a broken voice, Winona's subconscious chimed in). Winona told her half the truth. Her mother just nodded sadly and handed her two Tupperware containers. One held half her white frosting birthday cake, the other, roast chicken, potatoes and greek salad (all her favourites).

She left that night, drove her bike to the Riverside shipyards and the shuttle that would take her to California. It would be years before freedom tasted that bitter again.

("Because the stars are the best damn thing about Iowa, and going to them is the farthest away I'll ever get.")

* * *

><p>"<em>Love is just love, it can never be explained.<em>_" - Proverb_

She met George Kirk in a bar fight.

When Winona tells people that, they often gasp in shock and ask in a disbelieving tone, "George was in a bar fight?" To them, she gives a funny look and replies condescendingly, "No, I was".

Winona loved the Academy. San Francisco had been everything she'd needed upon leaving home. It was people and lights and laughter and _life_ in all its many forms. She saw dozens of alien species she'd never even heard of before (and maybe even slept with one or two!), she tried foods that smelled like heaven in a bottle (that she threw up minutes later) and foods that looked like green ooze (which she may have ended up eating four servings of). She went to clubs that were five stories tall, visited every single bar in the SF bay area (and tried every microbrew on tap), and learned to kayak and windsurf (though learned might not be the right word for the windsurfing so much as fell her face a dozen or so times and had a fucking blast).

Winona was still human though, and she'd needed an outlet for her anger and frustration. Her poisons of choice were drinking and fighting.

The latter sometimes proved to a problem seeing as she was female. Gallant young men, even in the 23rd century, felt it inappropriate to hit a girl. They had no problem beating the snot out of someone smaller or weaker than them. There was an easy solution to this problem though since when a brawl had already been started, nobody really gave a rat's ass about who they were hitting, so long as they were on the other side.

This how, barely three months into her first year at the Academy, she met Ray. He wasn't Academy – just a local with a penchant for giving broken noses and getting into trouble. Winona didn't having anything particular bothering her that day, but her blood had been roaring and she was already well into the bottle of vodka at her dorm when she'd decided to go out. Her friend Pakpao (and for a tiny Vietnamese girl, damn could she drink) had accompanied her, looking for her own, more distinctly masculine form of stress release.

When the tall, lanky boy at the bar started getting pounded on by three (much larger) guys, Winona had been beside him in a heartbeat. She didn't remember who had won the fight, but she was pretty sure she'd broken someone's arm at one point. Pao had dragged her and Ray outside when somebody had called the cops (Acadmey policy wasn't very forgiving when it came to bar brawls and Winona didn't need another mark on her record) and she'd set Ray's nose right in a nearby park. They'd been friends ever since.

Ray, along with two other Academy friends of hers, was there the September night she met George. September 14, 2225 he'd tell her later (she wasn't nearly sober enough to remember something like that). The fight got real big and real nasty, real fast. It was five versus four including Winona and she could _feel_ the bruises forming on her face by the time she heard the sirens approaching. All of sudden, somebody grabbed her by the arm and was dragging her out the side entrance, pulling her along a good three blocks before she wrestled away.

"What the hell is your problem?" she all but spit at him.

Wide eyes stared back at her in shock.

"My problem?" he'd asked, "What do – I mean – Look! I didn't want you getting hurt or arrested or anything. Are you okay?"

Winona stared back in disbelief. He didn't want her getting _hurt_? Who the hell did this guy think he was?

"I was handling myself just fine, fucker."

She saw the anger on his face for a split second (and it was then somewhere in the back of her mind she realized, hey, this guy was kind of hot) before it was smoothed away. He put his hand lightly on her arm, and she could practically feel him turn on the charm.

"Look I just wanted to make sure you'd be okay. Let me at least go back to campus with you, and if you want I can grab some ice from my freezer – I'm in the south dorms so it's right by the entrance. You don't have to go upstairs or anything if you don't want to and I promise I won't tell anyone what happened, so what –"

"No." She said shaking off his hand and turning her back to him. She stalked away fuming – this dumbfuck has the nerve to break up her fight and now he wants to walk her back to campus so that she'd be safe? No freaking way.

"Hey wait! Seriously, you shouldn't be out here alone, you could –"

Winona's fist connected to his face with a satisfying crunch and the cadet went down. She didn't even spare him a parting insult, just continued on her way back to the bar. Her friends were waiting a few buildings away and they all went home after what was just really just another normal night.

The cadet showed up at her dorm the next day after class. She stood there stupefied (she really shouldn't have been – like she hadn't ever hacked into the Academy database before) as he stammered out some apology. Once her brain had caught up to what was happening, she slammed the door in his face.

It was then who she finally found out who the cadet was: George Kirk, command cadet, top of his class and every girl's dream man, Or he was according to her roommate Tracey, who'd watched the whole thing. Kirk was bright and handsome, and, "All the instructors say he's going to be fast tracked for captaincy". Winona didn't really give a shit.

George did though, and he found her again the next day after her warp physics lecture. She had to admit, now that she'd actually taken a good look at him, George was rather attractive and he had rather dazzlingly blue eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she had asked him. Seriously, what was this guy's problem – did he have some sort of damsel-in-distress complex (and if he did Winona would knock it out of him right there and then – she didn't need any man's help), "If you're here to apologize again..."

"I'm not," he assured her quickly, his voice a deep, smooth baritone, "I wanted to ask you out."

It was the second day in a row he'd made her double take. Winona took a good minute to stare at him in shock before she could finally think of something to say.

"Why?"

"Because you don't take anyone's bullshit," was his answer. And Winona had to admit, that was probably the only answer she wouldn't have punched him in the face for (again). She was a bit hesitant (which was weird in and of itself, because Winona _never_ hesitated), but she had inevitably agreed (saying something like that to her face did take a lot of balls). George took her out to a small, Italian bistro on the bay. Not overly casual, but comfortable and more importantly delicious. He'd paid for the meal in advance, anticipating that Winona would want to pay for herself, and they spent the rest of the evening walking along the bay. It was romantic and corny, but in a somewhat unexpected way, and Winona had loved it.

It was a whirlwind from then on out. Winona fell hard and fast; harder and faster than she'd even fallen for anything else in her life and they were engaged eight months later. George was amazing and absolutely perfect for her. He was steady and solid, brilliant and able to talk her ear off as much as she was his, and had a hidden wild streak nearly as deep as Winona's. He was the most charming man she'd ever met, but it was real charm (not the fake sleazy kind that boys used in bars to get laid), authentic and just part of who George _was_. She'd stopped getting into fights (she didn't feel the need to with George, and hey, she still had alcohol) and she'd started getting less bitter, less defensive. He told her she'd turned him into some sort of wild child, getting into extreme sports and partying harder than ever. Winona hadn't let him blame that on her (though she wasn't exactly a stabilizing influence).

They had some things in common, like space and how they could just look into the night sky for hours on end, but they were different too. There was one thing Winona noticed more than the rest, but she'd never had the guts to ask George if he noticed it too. See Winona was a runner. When life got too hard to handle, she took off, leaving everything she could live without behind. George though, George stared life's problems right in the eyes and forced them to kneel at his feet. It made him perfect for command; he kept a cool head in stressful situations and always seemed to know exactly how to make things right again. It was something Winona would never have and she'd accepted that (but damn if she didn't envy him).

They'd eloped at the end of third year. George's father, Tiberius, had given his blessing, and Winona had decided she didn't care whether or not her family approved.

She'd called them, to tell them the news of her engagement, only to find that her father had passed away in her second year, and no one had cared to tell her. Her mother had blamed her (said that straight up) and hung up before Winona had gotten more than a word in. Although Frank had called back later to apologize, Winona hadn't wanted to hear it. She told him brusquely about George and hey maybe she'd call back when she had kids. Then she'd hung up (maybe her temper was from her mother's side of the family, not her father's, after all).

When George had asked (badgered) her if she was really okay with that, she'd only had one thing to say.

("You can only be betrayed by someone you still love.")

* * *

><p>"<em>Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought." – Albert Szent-Gyorgyi<em>

They were both assigned to the U.S.S. Kelvin at graduation. George was a tactical officer (and he'd already had mentions of the first officer post for when Robau was inevitably promoted to captain) and Winona was stationed in engineering. It was almost everything she'd dreamed of.

She loved the engineering decks and she'd slept down there more than a few times when she just couldn't bring herself to get away from her work. The first few times, George had come down to bring her back to their shared quarters (with a double bed, thank god for small miracles), but he'd given up upon realizing that waking her up only meant she was going to get right back into the thick of things. Winona felt bad about it sometimes, but she wasn't the only one in their relationship pulling double (or triple) shifts once in a while.

The one thing Winona wanted more of was to go on away missions. She knew she was lucky to get on any away teams (despite the prompt promotion to lieutenant after her first year), but getting to explore new worlds, meet new species – that excited her like nothing else.

Her first surface mission was truly the stuff that dreams were made of. Dnoces III orbited a yellow star, slightly smaller than Earth's own sun. She'd known from the initial surveys that it was a lush planet, covered in water and thriving plant life. Nothing had prepared her for what she'd found though.

The team had materialized on the surface on a flat grassy plain and quickly gotten into pairs. Winona had been paired with Lieutenant Voor, a kind, gentle woman from the botany department who was sometimes a little too obsessed with her plants. The grassland was soft and Winona sighed wistfully at the idea of taking off her shoes and finally feeling organic life under her feet again (because even Winona got homesick sometimes and it'd been almost two years now). She looked over at the Lieutenant, who was immersed in some sort of purple flower with a rosy red stem and she figured, hey, why the hell not. If she was reprimanded, it'd probably be worth it. She wiggled out of her Federation-issue black boots and crouched quietly among the long grasses. It felt like heaven, digging her toes into the reddish dirt, and she lay back quietly, now obscured completely by the swaying fronds. It was gusty, but the wind was gentle and warm, and Winona was completely relaxed until she looked up at the sky.

It was blue, but more of a periwinkle blue with just a hint of purple than the clear pure blue of Earth. There were clouds in the sky, fluffy and tinted golden by the sun. It was the most beautiful thing Winona had ever seen (more beautiful than golden Iowan fields or stars twinkling beside an eerie white moon in the warm county sky). She never wanted to leave.

Alas, duty called quite literally, and Winona sat up with a jolt as Voor called out for Lieutenant Kirk. She looked over sheepishly, but the lieutenant didn't seem angry, merely amused.

"Bored?" the Andorian woman asked teasingly.

Winona laughed, "Not one bit," she said with a blinding smile. Voor nodded in understanding and, once Winona had wrestled her boots back on, the set of for the forest a mile west of their current location.

Winona didn't remember exactly how they got separated, but at some point, she found herself alone surrounded by bushes that were taller than she was and trees she couldn't even guess the height of. She was retracing her steps (or at least she thought she was), when a large (absolutely freaking humongous) creature came barrelling in front of her. It noticed her presence (okay so she might have freaked out a little bit – the planet was supposed to be devoid of animal life!) and turned around to face her slowly. It (and right then and there she resolved to call it a Wallabear) resembled a bear, but without the carnivorous teeth and claws and it a whole ton bigger. It was probably eight feet tall on all fours!

Winona approached it cautiously, well aware that the beast could snap her in half even if it didn't eat meat. The Wallabear though, just stood there, its black nose twitching and ruffling its brown fur once in a while. Otherwise it was completely still. She was only about a foot in front of it, when she held her arm out, like she might for a (much, much smaller) dog back home. The Wallabear had a similar response; it sniffed the proffered limb cautiously, rubbed its head against her affectionately, and then bounded away, scaring the hell out of Winona again as it crashed through the dense foliage. Belatedly she realized she should have taken a vid or something for the planet's records. Oh well, they'd have plenty of hair to analyze in the lab, judging from the amount the Wallabear left on her arm. She pocketed a few dozen of the coarse strands and eventually found her way out of the forest to where Voor was waiting.

She didn't have time to tell of her discovery though, for as a soon as the lieutenant caught sight of her, Voor ran up, grabbed her arm and hailed the Kelvin.

Commander Robau was waiting in the transporter room, and a quick check of her wrist-watch told Winona that'd they'd missing the last check point by a good hour. Listening to Voor's report, she gathered that the forest interfered with the communicators' signals, not only preventing them from getting in touch with the Kelvin, but preventing them from communicating between one another. Oops.

When Voor finished, and Robau turned to leave, Winona called him back.

"Um, sir?"

"Yes, lieutenant?" he asked, eyes snapping to hers. Winona straightened instinctively but like hell was he going to intimidate her.

"Did you find any animal life on the planet, sir?" she asked levelly, her eyes never leaving his.

"No, lieutenant we did not. It seems our initial scans were correct for once," he replied in the same tone, "Why do you ask?"

Winona reached into her pocket and grabbed some of the fur (which was now clumping together dammit) and held it out to him.

"It's Wallabear fur, sir," she declared monotonously, revelling in the surprise on his face and the outright disbelief on Voors'. The Commander touched the hair gingerly, his wonder clear in his movements, before regaining composure. He wanted to ask, she could see it in his entire body.

"Well done, Lieutenant Kirk," Robau said briskly and she had to admire his restraint. Winona wasn't really surprised he knew who she was – she and George were married after all. "Take the samples to a lab and provide them with a description of the creature. Dismissed."

Winona awkwardly stood at attention (she couldn't really stand properly with the fur in her hand) as the Commander hurried away. Voor was looking at her with curiosity (and Winona _swore_ she saw jealousy there too) and they walked silently to the labs on Deck 4.

George found her there after beta shift. She'd been at the labs for hours, helping with the DNA sequencing (because it didn't god damn matter if Winona wasn't a biologist, she'd discovered the Wallabear and she wasn't going to let them do it without her) and satisfying the curiosity of the science department with description of the animal. With a charming smile and twinkling eyes, George somehow managed to convince the science officers that they didn't really need her anymore, and dragged her off before she could object.

They stayed up most of the night talking, the majority of which was Winona recounting her experiences on the beautiful planet and her encounter with the Wallabear. George took it in good humour, and she could practically see the happiness in his eyes as she spoke. She asked him why he was looking at her like that.

"Because you're so beautiful when you're happy," he had replied with a small smile. Winona had kissed him.

When they finally had fallen asleep some hours later, they'd both been exhausted and they were sure to have bags under their eyes when they got up for alpha shift.

A few weeks later, Winona was sick for the first time; nine months after the mission to Dnoces III, George Samuel Kirk, Jr., was born in the Kelvin's sick bay. Winona had never cried so hard in her life (and she was pretty sure she'd never been happier).

("I know we're not ready George, but we'll show him what it is to laugh, to love and to _live_. And that's all that really matters.)

* * *

><p><em>"My heart's in the right place. I know, 'cause I hid it there." - Carrie Fisher<em>

Four years later, Winona found out she was pregnant again. Another son who wasn't planned (she refused to say they were an accident though, because that meant they weren't _wanted_, and Winona wanted them so damn much).

She'd spent the first year after George's birth on Earth, back at the family farm. She and Frank had reconciled after their mother's death (he'd actually let her know this time, which was a big step forward). They weren't on the best of terms, but they were polite and could tolerate one another most of the time. Frank spent most of his time farming and drinking, the latter of which he made a point to do outside of the house which Winona was grateful for. She spent most of her time with George (Jr.) and reading journals and mission reports – she may have been on maternity leave, but Winona was anything but complacent.

She and George (Sr.) talked almost every day and while he couldn't be a father in person, he sure as hell was one in spirit. He played with Sam (as George had taken to calling him) through vids and while Winona wasn't sure where he managed to find the communication hours, she suspected that he may have set up his own private channel somewhere on the ship. Even blackmail and coercion had its limits.

By the time Sam turned two (by then they'd all started calling him Sam just to get rid of the confusion), Winona was getting restless. She'd tried to be a diligent mother, taking a job at the Riverside ship yards so she could spend weekends and evenings with her son, but _damn _was she restless. It just wasn't the same on Earth (wasn't enough anymore), and Winona's soul called out for the stars. She knew she loved space (but she loved Sam too) and she knew she'd only become resentful if she stayed. Nevertheless, it still felt like she was running away. The stars had become her home as much as Earth though, and she could only be away from them for so long (and when she was getting on that shuttle, oh that freedom tasted so bitter).

George was slightly suspicious when she told him of the contract with Starfleet (a year on ship, a year off, and so on for six years), but he should've known Winona was very good at getting what she wanted. Sam was sent to live with Tiberius, Frank got the farm back to himself again and Winona could follow her dreams once again. The Kelvin was scheduled to restock and repair there for the end of its five year mission, and Winona would be there just in time to meet it.

It was good to see _First Officer _(and Lieutenant Commander) George Kirk again (she just might have tackled him when he told her the news) and the Kelvin set off with Captain Robau within a couple days of her arrival. They talked to Sam and 'Tibby' almost daily (Winona was right about George's private channel), and she still felt like a horrible mother, but it was easier to forget with the steady hum of the engineering decks under her feet.

Their second child made Winona reconsider. She'd seen Sammy start to get distant (get hurt by her absence) and she knew she had to fix it. She could tell that George saw it too, and somebody needed to be there with their child (soon their children), and tell him it'd be alright, that he was a great father, and that they all just loved Captain Kirk (he'd be Captain soon enough and Winona could never deprive him of that). Tiberius needed surgery but he'd never get it while he had a child to look after. She'd never tell him this to his face, because Tibby loved Sam as much as Winona did (but he's got the same self-sacrificing nature as George while Winona never seemed to have gotten the hang of sacrifice at all). She knew he'd do absolutely anything for his grandson and she couldn't have that on her conscience too.

So her hard-earned contract went down the drain, and she got a permanent job at Riverside. She'd take the occasional mission off-planet, but at starbases and colonies, rather than on a starship. The missions would be shorter and less frequent but she'd learn to sacrifice no matter how damn much she hated it.

Then the black ship appeared, Nero attacked and George was dead.

Winona did nothing but cry the first few weeks. Literally all she could think of was "Nonononononononono"; her mind couldn't handle anything else. She'd never really figured out heartbreak before, thought it nothing but romantic superstituion, but it was an apt term. Her heart felt as if it were shattering to pieces – being pulled in every direction, stomped on and cut up into jagged bloody slices. Every part of her hated herself for living and George for dying and _leaving her_. So when she finally stopped crying and started sleeping (and this wasn't until the escape shuttles had been picked up by the USS Mayflower), she'd overdosed on her sedatives. She couldn't remember exactly what had happened, but she remembered a lot of hate: for George, for Jim, for herself and for getting over his death (why wasn't she still _crying_?). She'd wanted to die, because really, without, George, why was she good enough to live?

Winona woke up in sick bay 42 hours after passing out, and once the CMO had removed the tube down her throat that was letting her breathe, Captain Goldbach sat down beside her. He told her that he wouldn't be reporting the incident to Starfleet, but if Winona didn't get a goddamn hold of herself he was taking her kids away from her himself.

It'd been one hell of a wake-up call, but it worked. She was still severely depressed; she couldn't eat, and when somebody managed to get something in her stomach, she threw it up. At the very least though, she'd gotten her ass out of sickbay and visited Jim. Ensign Jules, an engineering on the Kelvin (and damn saying even the name almost brought back the tears) had been taking care of her son for the week they'd been on the Mayflower. Winona hadn't even been able to hold him before; she'd been so deep in her anguish. She thanked the ensign quietly (and the girl, god bless her soul, nodded in understanding and just held the baby out to his mother).

Winona spent the rest of the trip in her temporary quarters, only leaving when she had to get food from the mess or supplies for Jim. He was a loud baby, wailing at all hours of the day and night. It worked for Winona though 'cause she didn't sleep for more than two or three hours anyways (the nightmares were worse than the reality, because although he was gone at least reality didn't tear him away from her over and over again).

Tiberius, Frank and Sam all met her in San Francisco. She moved back to Frank's farm and Tiberius stayed with them at first. But dear old Tibby and Frank got on like oil and fire and six months after Jimmy had been born, she'd convinced him that no, she wasn't okay, but she could do this. Tiberius had kissed her on the cheek, held her close, and told her to call him if he needed anything. Winona nodded, but really, she'd known years ago that the old man would be there in a heartbeat if she asked, no matter the reason.

Starfleet had organized a memorial for the Kelvin a few weeks after the survivors had returned to Earth (and they were all survivors now, because everyone had lost something, be it their captain, their co-worker, their friend or their innocence). Winona hadn't wanted to go, because they knew nothing about George, or how he was, or how he would've hurt so much more than any of them if he hadn't been able to save them like he had.

She recalled the Captain's words though, and she dressed Sam in a suit, kept Jim in his pyjamas with yellow ducks on them and wrapped him in a baby blue blanket. She put on her sexiest red dress (made of real satin), her favourite diamond necklace (a birthday gift from George and she could fucking cry later _dammit_), patent black heels and a shit-eating grin. She showed up at the service eyes burning with her two beautiful children firmly in hand and sat through the apologies, the eulogies (she was right, they didn't know a damned thing about George) and the press. She said only one thing to the reporters: "Get the hell out of my face or I'm taking your goddamn camera". She kept the strained smile on her face the entire time though, and Winona would mourn later in private (and she'd cry and scream and break apart all over again), but she wouldn't let anybody see it. Her family was worth more than that.

("George don't you dare leave me, you pathetic, fucking asshole, please, please, please don't leave, just don't leave me, don't, _please_...")

She went on her first off-planet mission when Jim was five. She loved her sons to pieces, she really, really did, but there was a George-shaped hole in her heart that they just couldn't fill (and that was among the reasons she knew she was a horrible mother). She tried filling it with Starfleet, making engines and warp drives at the ship yards even though George's pension (a hero's pension) was enough for her family to live comfortably. It hadn't been enough, and she'd been drawn back into the stars despite how hard she had tried to leave them behind. She knew that her family needed her; Jim was so young, so precious and brilliant and Sam was that age when he knew exactly what she was doing and blamed her for it every second of it. She was still running away, and she'd broken all the promises she made to herself (and Jimmy and Sam and George) that she'd learn to make sacrifices.

Jim had asked her why she'd didn't love him. She'd realized then that if one of her kids was going to grow up to be just like their father, it would be Jim. Only Jimmy could break her heart just like George had.

("Oh Jimmy, I love you so much. Don't you think for one second that I don't.")

She couldn't find a reason to tell him why she was leaving.

* * *

><p>"<em>A mother understands what a child does not say" – Jewish proverb<em>

Everybody tells you that as you get older, you grow up naturally, just like that. Winona knows they're wrong. It's the people in your life and the things that those people do that make you grow-up. George had had that affect on her, had made her want to be better, but when she lost him she'd been eighteen all over again (punches, walls and acrimony included). It had mellowed a bit with her children (she loved them too much to be harsh with them), but nobody except her family ever saw the inner (the real) Winona Kirk. That started to change when Jimmy was twelve, with the Car Incident.

Sam was steady, solid and bright, and didn't really care about school. He spent most of his childhood making friends, playing sports and goofing off. Sam's friends and brother made him happy (happier than Winona or Frank ever could), so she didn't push the academics. And god Sam grew up hating her, but even then it was a predictable kind of anger and Winona understood it. So she thought that really, he was some of George, some of himself and maybe just a splash of his mother. The only thing that she and Sam really had in common was that they were both runners and they both damn good at it. By the time Sam was twelve, he'd run away from home twice; that number had more than tripled by the time he was fourteen. Winona knew that one of these days he'd be gone for good, so she told him she loved him whenever she could and hoped to god he would find himself happiness.

It was Jim, little innocent, blue-eyed Jimmy, who took life by the balls and threw its trials to the wind (just like his father). There was no problem Jimmy left unsolved, no challenge unmet. He was more than brilliant, a true genius, and smarter than Winona and George put together. Winona had sent him to an academy for gifted children when he was four, having exhausted most of what she could teach him at home. It was a small school, and all the children were given an individualized education. Jim loved it, but most of the kids there never let him forget that he was George Kirk's son who thought he was better than everybody else (as if Jim had an arrogant bone in his body). It goes without saying that he didn't really make friends (study partners maybe, but not friends). Regardless of their attitude though, Jim excelled in academics and he seemed happy. Somehow Winona missed everything underneath that.

She was on Starbase 11 when she got the call from the hospital. Jimmy had driven his father's old Chevy of a cliff and had fractured his right arm and two ribs. He was also being treated for a concussion. Winona was on the first shuttle back to Earth and arrived in San Francisco not three days later. She was in Riverside by mid-afternoon and at the Jackson County hospital. The police officer outside her sons door had redirected the frantic, sleep-deprived woman to an empty waiting room nearby (despite her quiet struggling and kicking – Jimmy had been asleep) where two officers were standing beside a wildly gesturing Frank. All it took was one look at his face and the words, "I swear I didn't—" before Winona's fist was in his face, and then his stomach, and at that point the police officers managed to pull her off of him. She settled for screaming at him, "You piece of shit, if you ever go anywhere near my sons again I'll kill you!" which really might not have been the best thing to say right then and there. The cops took it pretty well though and helped her take Frank to court. He got six months jail time, a restraining order, and due to the fact that he couldn't be within two hundred metres of Winona or her family, he also had to give up his half of the farm.

When Winona finally got to see Jim, after the police had taken Frank away, he'd told her that Sam was gone, Uncle Frank had never touched him before the Car Incident (but Sam had been his target a couple times). He had also told her, for the first time ever, that he hated her. Now Winona had seen it in the way he was cold to her sometimes, or the way he shrank away from her touch, but he'd never said it to her face. It didn't hurt as much as she thought it would (probably because frankly she didn't believe him).

"Why'd you drive the car of a cliff, Jimmy?" she'd asked quietly, saying nothing about what he'd just confessed.

"Uncle Frank was going to sell it," he replied immediately and Winona just _got _it.

"Good work," she whispered softly, and hellthat caught Jimmy off guard. He understood too though; she wasn't mad, she was worried and sorry and god she knew Frank wasn't the best father figure in the world, but she had never thought he'd hurt a child. Jimmy had already been discharged but the police hadn't wanted let Jim go home with his uncle. Winona could have kissed them.

She took him home and made him curly fries and apple pie with caramel sauce and extra whipped cream for dinner (she was pretty damn cool like that). She tucked him into bed that night, kissed him on the forehead (he didn't protest like he normally did), and told him she loved him (so damn much, Jimmy).

Winona made blackberry, chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. She had just been about to wake him up when she'd heard the soft footsteps coming down the stairs.

"I don't hate you, y'know," he said in his small, sleepy voice, and Winona's heart swelled (_thank god_). She told him she loved him too.

("But it's not his car, it's dad's car, but you and me would never _ever_ want to sell it and he had _no right_.")

* * *

><p>"<em>If in barbed wire things can bloom, why couldn't I? I will not die, I will not die." - <em>_Friedl and the Children of Terezin_

It was two years later that Winona Kirk came to the cold realization that she had failed her youngest son once again.

Winona couldn't be a full-time parent and Jimmy wouldn't take one. After the Car Incident, all her son's anger and resentment had come boiling to the surface. He was skipping school (at the while getting perfect marks – she thought it was just to prove he _could_), had started smoking and drinking, and Winona had watched one son go down that road (her road). There was no way in hell she'd let Jimmy do it too.

So she shipped him off-planet. A friend of hers (one of the few she'd kept in touch with from her Academy days) was a biologist on a beautiful Federation colony. She was happily married and had three children, two boys and a girl, the eldest who was close to Jimmy's age. Winona had fallen in love with space, so she was hoping that maybe Jimmy would too (she was starting to realize that whereas Jim might have his father's brilliance he took after her goddamn insanity). There was a private school on her colony that her friend had talked about, run by the infamous Hoshi Sato. It would be a much more informal education, but Jimmy didn't need structure so much as he needed resources and the freedom to learn things his own way.

At first, it had turned out perfectly. Jimmy had calmed down almost instantaneously, immersed in the whole new world he had to discover. He didn't tell her a lot of details, but Winona could see in his face that he was happy, and she thought that maybe, just once, she had done right by him.

The name Tarsus IV would never cease to haunt her dreams.

She'd gotten the call from Captain April himself aboard the USS Columbia and she'd been near delirium when she'd stormed into Commodore Stone's office. She hadn't noticed (or cared) that the Commodore was in a meeting with the Admiralty as she screamed at him that he'd better get her a transport within the next hour or she would shut down the whole fucking base.

"Winona, please," Admiral Nogura started, and Winona's attention jumped to the screen.

"Don't you _dare_, Nogura," she all but growled, "My _son_ was on that planet. If I'm not on a shuttle back to Earth by the time I'm done packing, I will personally see to it that Starfleet has the worst PR nightmare in its entire fucking _history_. I think the media would be quite interested to hear from the wife of a late Starfleet hero, whose son also _happened_ to be a survivor from Tarsus IV, now don't you?"

The screen was silent for a few moments before the Admiral quietly ordered Stone to prepare a ship for Commander Kirk's return to Earth. She could tell that her statement had just sunk in with a few of the gathered Admirals, while others had absolutely no clue what she was talking about. Well, she'd just have to remedy that, now wouldn't she.

"I expect, Admiral," she grated out heavily, "That Starfleet will handle this situation with the utmost respect and honour. Do so, and you'll find no records of Jim ever being _near_ Tarsus. Do I make myself clear?"

Nogura nodded, annoyed but clearly relieved, and he cut the connection. Winona may not have been a particularly important figure in Starfleet politics, but she was a media darling and she knew how to make one hell of commotion (they'd been talking about her dress and Jimmy's PJs for months after the first Kelvin memorial).

Winona arrived in San Fran a day and a half before the Columbia's return to Earth. She'd gotten a temporary security clearance code from Starfleet with which she efficiently removed all the documents that linked Jim to having travelled to Tarsus. Most of the Tarsus resident and schooling files had been already been deleted in the mess on the planet (including Jim's); she'd have to delete any remaining copies of his medical and residential records from the Columbia's databanks directly. The only files she wouldn't be able to gain access to would be Nogura's own copies of the reports (and she knew he had them because Jim was still George Kirk's son and he'd never something like that be erased completely).

Always one for thoroughness, Winona forged a transfer form, report cards and formal complaints from real teachers for Jim's unruly, disrespectful behaviour at a local public school. She inserted appointments for parent teacher meetings into the old calendars and created class schedules for his Grade 11 and 12 courses (Jimmy would've been bored to tears with classmates his own age). She finished up with fake medical files: yearly check-ups, two appointments for when Jim had gotten seriously hurt from fist fights, and one appointment for having caught the flu.

The night had barely begun when she finally logged off. She'd gone to one of her favourite hole-in-the-wall bars in SoMa and had almost a full bottle of bourbon. The bartender there knew Winona and her moods well, and he forced six glasses of water down her throat before allowing her to leave. Winona got three hours of sleep, woke up and ran through the gardens for another two hours until she got the notice that the Columbia was about to dock. She didn't bother to shower, and made her way to the main hangers in a nondescript engineering uniform devoid of any insignia or rank stripes, with her hair tucked up under matching red cap.

Other families were there already waiting, and while she couldn't spot any media, it didn't hurt to be careful. She flashed a clearance badge at the security guard and made her way silently to the waiting shuttles which seated extra medical staff, Admiral Nogura (surprise, surprise), and the Admiral's assistant. He raised an eyebrow at Winona's entrance, but she made her way quickly to the back of the shuttle without so much as a second glance at the man. The flight to the space dock had never seemed so long, but she forced herself to hang back when they finally arrived and the medical personnel rushed out. She slipped off the shuttle quietly after Nogura, and made her way to the engineering deck. She found the Chief Engineer, showing him her clearance (damn she should really try and keep that when this was all over) and he quickly found something else to busy himself with.

It took her only a few minutes to delete all the ship's files on James Tiberius Kirk, and she breathed a sigh of relief when it was finally completed. She made her way up to the civilian quarters shakily (thankfully most of the surviving colonists had already been transferred) and made her way 'JT's quarters. She knocked quietly, and a male voice invited her in (Lieutenant Sokel if she remember correctly, had taken charge of Jim during his time on board).

Winona wasn't prepared. She read the medical records and the mission logs (he was his father's son through and through), but knowing and seeing were two very different things. He was wafer thin (a light breeze could have blown him over), every bone of his body protruding misshapenly, but his eyes burned into her like hot embers. She saw what they meant when they said JT was a hero, saw how this child (_her_ child) could have saved over a dozen young lives.

"Oh Jimmy," escaped her before she could stop it, and as soon as she'd said it, she knew she'd made her final mistake. Because those two words contained all the pity and all the admiration that Jim didn't need to hear. Not only that, but she'd called him by his childhood name; he wasn't a child anymore and now he'd think she didn't know that (but she did Jim!).

He stiffened and very quietly (though loud enough for Sokel and Winona to both hear), told her, "I hate you." Winona's heart cracked this time (he really meant it this time, she could _hear _it in his voice) and the tears spilled down her cheeks like hot, dripping tar (not just because he hated her, but also because he was a man in a child's body and his hurt would never completely go away, no matter how much love she gave him). Jim froze in shock; she'd cried so many times over George, but never in front of her boys. She loved them too much to show them that part of her sorrow. Right then however, she couldn't have held the tears back if her life had depended on it.

She grabbed him by his thin shoulders and hugged him tenderly (and oh so carefully). She whispered gently in his ear and while Jim returned the hug gingerly, she knew she was a long way from his forgiveness.

("I know Jim, _god_I know. I hate me too.")

* * *

><p>"<em>Like mother, like son. I'm not surprised." - Carol Maturo<em>

It was a year after Tarsus when Winona first showed Jim her bike.

She'd kept in a storage facility in San Francisco for years. Frank and Tibby had never approved, and between her pregnancies and Sam's rebellious streak she'd thought it wiser to keep it away from her family (and who'd have thought Winona would ever do something wise!). It needed a tune-up and some tender loving care, but she'd gotten it running lickety split.

She and Jim rarely spoke upon his return to Earth. At first he'd spent most of his time at home, sleeping, eating and reading. Winona hadn't said anything to him, but she'd had a feeling he felt uncomfortable going too far away from a steady food source (if their fridge could really be called that). His physical recovery had been the easy part though, and once he was well and fit again, he'd take off (sometimes days at a time), doing god knows what. Well, that wasn't entirely true – Winona had a pretty good idea what he was doing, and it probably involved beer, bloody knuckles and girls, in any variety of combinations.

Jim was Winona's fifteen year old self with a dick and a significantly stronger sex drive. Winona had enjoyed sex (obviously), but she'd never sought it out to the extent that Jim did. One might think that, having been in a similar situation, Winona might know how to deal with a rebellious, stubborn-as-a-mule teenager with a penchant for trouble. They'd be dead wrong; even to the day, Winona could never think of anything that could have gotten through to her angry teenage self. Jim was very much the same (though somewhere under all that anger there was deeply ingrained chivalry and damn if that didn't throw her for a loop sometimes).

So Winona always kept a two-four in the fridge, and a couple cheap bottles of bourbon and whiskey in her liquor cabinet (like she was going to let a fifteen year old the good stuff), and tried to show Jim that she was always there for him, no matter what or who he did.

While she and Jim might have been drifting apart, Winona had finally reconnected with Sam. He'd gotten married at the ripe young age of nineteen, and was studying biology in Barcelona. His wife Brianna Kirk (née O'Neill) was an arts student at another college in the same city. She was a sweet girl, with light brown hair and speckled green eyes, and Winona personally thought she was a perfect fit for Sam (though she didn't know if she knew him well enough to really say that).

Jim aced his final high school exams before he turned sixteen. She given him the motorcycle as a graduation present and he'd become just as obsessed as Winona had. He'd taken it apart and rebuilt it from scratch (with some of his own modifications) within a month. At that point he gave it back to Winona and told her he wanted to get his own, because that bike would always be hers, no matter how much he tinkered with it (she'd cried after that, because he could see her soul in that bike and it was so much more than she'd ever deserved from him). True to his word, Jim built his own from scratch, using old parts for the frame (he'd told her they were vintage pieces from the 20th century and Winona believed him because Jim would) and new parts for the mechanics.

A year later, Winona managed to convince Jim to enroll in Iowa State University (he could have gone anywhere for all she cared). Jim still didn't know what he wanted to do in life, but he lived it without faltering and with a burning passion, so it wasn't that hard to get him to try and find something he truly loved. He did a double major in physical sciences and history (read: warp physics and tactical studies) and that scared her like nothing else (he also took classes in French Literature and Pre-Reformation Vulcan, but Winona decided not to ask). Jim hated Starfleet more than Winona did – between George and Tarsus who could really blame him. When that attitude showed no sign of changing through the year and a half of his bachelor's degree, Winona started to relax (because Jim would _not _go into Starfleet – they'd taken enough from the both of them already).

Jim got offers from every major university on every major continent for graduate schooling; his academic counselor at ISU had apparently convinced him to take a slew of aptitude tests upon graduating. He turned down them all the day he left Iowa, two weeks before his nineteenth birthday. He'd left no note, no sign that he'd be gone for a while, but Winona felt it deep in her bones. He'd come back though (because he wasn't like Winona in that) and until then, she'd wait for him. This time she'd be there when he came home.

("Because if in running away he found himself happiness, he'd bring it back for everyone to share.")

* * *

><p>"<em>Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply; those who want to deny the world must have once embraced what they now set on fire." – Kurt Tucholsky<em>

Jim was twenty-two years old when he enlisted in Starfleet. Winona was off-planet (she started taking occasional missions when he'd come back to Iowa after his 20th birthday) and came home to a cold, empty house. All the doors and windows were locked and a small note was stuck to the fridge.

_ Gone to SF  
>- Jim<em>

That was all it said, and Winona sank to the kitchen floor in shock. She was numb and too damn exhausted to cry anymore. What she wasn't too tired to do though, was find out what son-of-a-bitch recruiter had managed to change Jim's mind.

At the not-really-so-old age of 50, Winona still had her beautiful blond hair, a 20-year old's figure (which she worked damn hard for thank you very much), and was better than ever at hacking Starfleet's central database (she'd spent the two years after Tarsus figuring out every proxy, back door and monitoring subroutine on the whole god damn network).When she came across Captain Christopher Pike, his dissertation on the Kelvin (and she probably should've remembered him from that, but she had been drinking a lot those days), and all the strings he had pulled to get a genius-level, repeat offender into the Academy, she threw her monitor across the room.

An hour later, having hooked up a spare screen, she sent a high priority message to Captain Pike's official Starfleet account. She wished she could have seen the look on his face when he played it back.

("You had no right, you ass-bag, shit-eating, son of a bitch. If he breaks so much as a finger, I'll grind your wrinkled, old body into star dust and dump the ashes into Klingon space, you hear?")

* * *

><p>"<em>We fight a lot, you know, but that's family. We may be dysfunctional but we're still family"<em>_ - __Star Jones_

Jim sent her a gift every Christmas, every Mother's day and every birthday while he was at the Academy. She returned the favour, substituting a mother's day gift for a home-cooked meal on Thanksgiving. They didn't speak to or see one another the entire time (the handwritten cards they exchanged by mail didn't really count).

Then Vulcan was destroyed, most of the Academy's senior class and officers were annihilated and only the U.S.S. Enterprise had managed to make it out alive (somehow saving the Earth in the process). Winona had checked to see what ship Jim was assigned to (it was supposed to be the Farragut – _please no_) but with an academic suspension on hold, Jim should have been grounded. Yeah, because 'Jim' and 'grounded' made perfect sense, _really_. There was no doubt in her mind that Jim had been on one of those six ships when the _Narada_ attacked.

The casualty lists were still coming in and she hadn't spotted Jim's name so far. Winona kept on hoping (she had to, because god, if Jim was gone too it'd be worse than George's death ever had been, and she couldn't face that again, she _couldn't_). So when the Captain of the Enterprise hailed her personally, Winona sat there paralyzed and dead to the world (Jim...). She couldn't remember even accepting the call.

"Hi mom," baby blue eyes peered back at her, and Winona was bawling her eyes out (because Jim was safe and whole and smiling and thank fucking god he was _okay_).

"Don't you ever," she exclaimed hoarsely, "Ever. Ever. EVER. Scare me like that. Ever. Again."

Jim just smiled back at her, and she started laughing and crying all at the same time. She was such a mess and she was the happiest she could ever remember feeling. All of a sudden she realized something though, and the tears and laughter dried up. No – that was... – Oh god, Jim was wearing command gold – He –

"Captain?" she screeched, and Jim ducked his head sheepishly, "You, you, you, you little –"

"Well," Jim replied with the biggest grin she ever seen on him, "Acting Captain of course. Pike promoted me to acting First Officer, and ... it kind of snowballed from there. It's a long story."

"I bet," she replied with a watery chuckle. Of course he was captain, who else was going to be the guy to save the whole god dam world, "So you're the big hero who saved the Federation, huh?"

Jim looked at his mother, horrified, and she cracked up well and good that time.

"Oh you're going to enjoy the press conferences Jimmy, I can just see it now."

"Thanks for the support, mom." Jim drawled, but there was laughter in his eyes, and everything _just felt right_.

"You're welcome, sweetheart," Winona replied softly, "I love you."

"I love you too mom," Jim echoed warmly, "I'll come see you when we get back to Earth. It'll be a few days limping back on impulse, but – "

"I'll be there when you dock in San Francisco," she cut him off gently, pride shining through every world she spoke.

Jim smiled gratefully, "Alright. I guess... I'll see you then."

"See you then," she returned quietly and Jim cut off the connection. James Tiberius Kirk, at 25 years old, was the Acting Captain of the USS Enterprise. She really should feel more surprised.

(She wished George could be there too, but, it was okay that he wasn't. Winona was proud enough for both of them.)

* * *

><p>"<em>In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony."- Eva Burrows<em>

A week later, Winona was sitting in the corner of a large, formally decorated parlour at Starfleet headquarters. She was flipping through reports on her PADD as she waited for the command crew's debriefings to end.

There were four other family groups in the room: a pair of Asian girls in their late-20s; a rotund woman (Russian if Winona guessed her accent right) with her dark, handsome husband; a tall, slim African woman with a penchant for the tea they kept serving; and a young girl with brown hair tied up in a little ponytail, clutching nervously onto her grandmother's arm.

The first officer to join them was a Nyota Uhura (Winona had read all the profiles and mission reports of the Enterprise's crew; really, the word "classified" didn't mean much to her), and the girl embraced her mother with graceful relief. They looked like dancers, Winona thought and she looked down at her worn jeans, t-shirt and vintage leather jacket with a wry smile. Winona knew she was beautiful, but she wouldn't exactly be described as refined (and god help her the day she was).

The Russian whiz kid, Pavel something-evich Chekov came in next, and his mother immediately started fussing over him, checking for injuries and exclaiming something repeatedly in Russian. Lieutenant Sulu entered shortly after, and the two girls (sisters, a wife maybe, but she'd didn't see a ring on the Helmsman's finger) all but jumped on him. Despite the man's embarrassment (maybe more so because of), it was rather cute and touching.

Leonard McCoy (or Bones as Jim had called him in his cards) barged through the doors soon thereafter and made beeline straight for his daughter. The girl (Winona couldn't remember her name) cried out, "Daddy!" delightedly before being swept up in his arms (and Winona swore she saw tears on the Doctor's face). It had been a long time, she realized sadly, since father and daughter had seen each other. She looked away (she couldn't watch).

The next wait was a bit longer until one Montgomery Scott, acting Chief Engineer, finally made his appearance. There didn't seem to be anybody waiting for him (parents dead, no siblings, Winona recalled from his file), and he sat down on the opposite end of Winona's couch. The silence between them was awkward for a while, but somehow they got on the topic of the Enterprise (Winona had helped build those warp cores and she never got tired about talking about them) and engines (they both agreed that Warp 8 would be standard cruising speed within the next half decade), not realizing how much time had passed until the next officer arrived.

Commander Spock, Winona thought a bit bitterly (bringing Jim up on academic charges and marooning him on Delta Vega – who did he think he was?), but the man had just lost his planet and no amount of maternal anger could compete with such a monstrosity. Pity welled up inside her and a bit of disbelief when Cadet Uhura put a gentle hand on his arm (because she knew that Vulcan's were touch telepaths, and _damn _that girl was hot). Some part of her realized this wasn't a normal reaction to someone who had just survived the greatest tragedy his race had ever known (but then again Winona had had a pretty screwed up life and she'd never consider herself to be 'normal').

The last wait was the longest and Winona swore that it didn't just feel that way. More than two and a half hours had passed since Spock had shown up and the command crew had gathered (Scott had excused himself politely) in a cluster by the door (waiting for Jim, she knew, and it made her chest burst with happiness).

Winona had been waiting for nearly seven hours when Jim finally made it out from the Admiralty's scrutiny alive. He looked so different from how Winona remembered; not physically, but he was standing taller and smiling (a real smile and she wondered how'd she'd lived all those years with only the fake one) and blushing (that was just _adorable_). His crew (and they'd be his soon enough, Winona knew) surrounded him, offering congratulations ("Can't believe we fucking made it"s) and love. She'd always be Jim Kirk's mother (flaws and all), but those brilliant, brave officers – they'd be his family.

Musings aside, she made her way quietly to the back of the group. Jim didn't notice her right away, but when he did, he froze mid-smile, his face in a comical expression of shock (he hadn't thought, "I'll be there," had meant "I'll be waiting for you the second you get off that shuttle"). She held his gaze a moment as he disentangled himself from his friends, before she bared her teeth in a maniacal grin.

"Jimmyyyy!" she screeched, and she quite literally jumped on him. He stumbled back into the wall (she did so love catching him by surprise) with a groan and a, "Jeez mom, get off!"

"Not a chance," she'd cooed happily (because Jim was alive, happy and more whole than he'd been since before Tarsus, before the Car, before she'd left).

Jim sighed in exasperation, but his arms tightened around her all the same. She hung on to him for a few more moments, just enjoying the fact that her son was right there (Jim, I love you), before she knew she had to let go. The amusement and surprise in the air was palatable as she faced their audience, but she looked each and every person in the eye and _dared _anyone to say something.

The Doctor was the first to break the silence.

"Oh my god, there are two of you," his sarcastic, southern drawl announced, and he looked so genuinely horrified. Winona laughed (like she hadn't laughed in years) and Jim protested ("Hey c'mon Bones, what the hell!"), but before they could get any further (she could tell right away that McCoy _knew_ Jim, and she'd pay good money to see them go at it), Admiral Barnett got their attention.

The crew of the Enterprise were to be confined to Academy grounds until Starfleet issued their final statement. There were to be no unscripted comments to the media or they'd be out of the service before anyone could say 'Warp' (Winona knew he was more bark than bite, especially with how many men they'd just lost, but Barnett did make an intimidating figure). Temporary accommodations were available for family members (Winona had gotten hers days ago) and they were allowed to order or replicate any food they wanted if they wanted to avoid the mess hall.

The Admiral disappeared back into the jaws of Fleet politics as soon as he'd dismissed them, but the crew had been instructed to wait until their escorts arrived.

"He'll give you the Enterprise, you know," Winona whispered, looking up at Jim (because she'd heard about Pike, and while she hoped he regained the use of his legs, he'd be in extensive PT for the better part of a year at least). Everybody gaped at her, speechless (except Scotty who didn't say anything per se, but was nodding his head in agreement), until:

"Holy shit you're crazy—"

"Commander Kirk, you don't seem to under—"

Jim and Spock stared at each other (Jim was still clearly astonished while the Vulcan looked perhaps mildly concerned) and Winona continued in their pause.

"Barnett may be a stubborn ass, but there's only so long he can hold a grudge. They know you can do it and they know that people need a hero right now. You're it Jimbo; you always have been."

Jim's eyes softened (a few years ago, it would have been the opposite, and he'd have stormed off in a rage) and she knew he understood. Winona wasn't just talking about Tarsus – Jim had always had a thing for saving people ever since was a kid – and he'd sure as hell saved her.

He mouthed, 'Thanks' to her as the aids bustled them away. Back at Jim and Bones' dorm she ordered them Italian, with enough dishes to last the five of them the better part of a week. Neither Jim nor Winona slept that night as they talked, they drank (for penniless cadets, the two of them actually had a pretty nice collection of alcohol) and they strengthened the bonds between them that had become so weak over the years (of fighting and running and hating).

Winona passed out the next morning to the sound of birds. Her head was in Jim's lap and his arms were draped across her shoulders.

"_Other things may change us, but we start and end with family."_

FIN


End file.
